"I continued to sense myself expanding further and further outward, drawing away from my physical surroundings. It was as though I were no longer restricted by the confines of space and time, and continued to spread myself out to occupy a greater expanse of consciousness. I felt a sense of freedom and liberation that I'd never experienced in my physical life before. I can only describe this as the combination of a sense of joy mixed with a generous sprinkling of jubilation and happiness. It stemmed from being released from my sick and dying body, a feeling of jubilant emancipation from all the pain that my illness had caused me." -- Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me: My Journey From Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
In her remarkable memoir of sickness and recovery, Anita Moorjani narrates her journey to "the other side" after a particularly vicious bout of cancer. She experiences a glimpse of the beyond--only to return back to life, fully healed and profoundly enriched by her experience:
"Each morning, I woke up wanting to explore the world anew. Every day was a fresh adventure. I wanted to walk, drive, explore, sit on the hills and the sand, and just take in this life!...The deliciousness of each day made me feel as though I'd just been born."
What a beautiful line!...and yet...what a cruel taunt.
Yes, it is a beautiful description of a life begun anew after a near-death experience. But how many of us--stricken with depression, struggling to drag ourselves through the day--can honestly hope for such a miraculous recovery? How many of us can even imagine feeling "as though I'd just been born"?
How many of us can hope at all?
I believe that hoping for bliss, for a life after this one, is counterproductive when trying to overcome depression. It focuses our attention far beyond the present moment, projecting our wishes and dreams into a tenuous future.
The present moment is our only refuge.
Hoping for death, for an afterlife--this is precisely what the depression wants. Its goal is to drive a wedge between us and the full richness of the present-moment experience.
I don't know if an afterlife exists. I want to believe that it does, that someday our suffering simply ends and we rediscover some joyous component of ourselves we'd long given up for lost. But I also know that it is only here, now, that true healing can occur.
We must simply be, and live--now. It's all we can do.
